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Tomatoes by Joy Sullivan

By T.

22 April 2026

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Tomatoes
Joy Sullivan

I waited so long for love
and suddenly, here it is
standing in the garden, hands full
of heirlooms hot from the sun.

Soon we’ll make a supper of them.
Salted slabs between slices of bread.
Your beard silvers. My hips ripen.
The mail piles up.

Phone calls go unanswered. Forgive us.
Our mouths are full of tomatoes.
We are so busy
being small and hungry and alive.

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This poem appeared in Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan, published by Dial Press Trade Paperback, 2024. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)

DESCRIPTION

“NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A vivid and inspiring poetry collection about what’s possible when we heed our instincts and honor our intuition, allowing ourselves to strike out for new territories of love, pleasure, and peace.

First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives you’re not living. Then, you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart.

So begins Joy Sullivan’s Instructions for Traveling West—a lush debut collection that examines what happens when we leave home and leap into the deep unknown. Mid-pandemic, Sullivanleft the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west. This dazzling collection tells that story as it illuminates the questions haunting us all: What possible futures lie on the horizon? What happens when we heed the call of furious reinvention?

A book for anyone flinging themselves into fresh starts, Instructions for Traveling West grapples with loss, loneliness and belonging. These poems teach us that naming our desire is profound alchemy. Each of us holds the power to set our own course forward.

Expansive and heart-opening—exquisite in their specificity, galvanizing in their scope—the poems in Instructions for Traveling West speak to the longing that lives within us all. They remind us that “joy is not a trick.”” (Source)

ABOUT JOY SULLIVAN

Joy Sullivan is a poet, teacher, and author of the national bestseller, Instructions for Traveling West. She received a Masters in poetry from Miami University and has served as the poet-in-residence for the Wexner Center for the Arts. Her work has appeared in places like Goop, Oprah Daily, Glamour UK, and The Sunday Paper, among many others. In addition to leading international writing retreats, Joy has guest-lectured in classrooms from Stanford University to Florida

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